Rush\Wright Associates

Springvale Community Precinct forms the central hub of the Springvale Activity Centre - a vibrant and multicultural civic, retail and commercial hub in Melbourne’s South East.

The 4 hectare site, located on Springvale Road, accommodates important civic infrastructure, including the Springvale City Hall, the existing Springvale Library and Customer Service Centre, and will be the site for a new Library and Community Centre. Located in close proximity to key civic landmarks and public transport, the Community Precinct will continue to be an important public asset and focal open space providing both active and passive recreation facilities, which will attract residents from both the local neighbourhood as well as the wider region.

Working in collaboration with Lyon Architects on the landscape and new civic centre buildings are symbolically centred around several remnant river red gum specimens on the site. The new park spaces form new inclusive welcoming land forms and pathways that embrace the symbolic gesture, the landscape the diverse trees on the site, and the differing peoples that have come to Springvale from many lands.

By wrapping the new community centre around the trees, the importance of the land and the protection of the Australian landscape becomes a central motif in the design. This design idea establishes the design ‘mood’ placing an Australian landscape and landscape urbanism as central to the new community precinct.

Springvale Community Precinct is comprised of a number of play spaces, both active and programmed play, as well as spaces for passive recreation and unplanned play. The spaces have been designed to be inclusive and universally accessible, with activities to accommodate all abilities. Play trails throughout the site allow for a continued sense of discovery and the ability for the recreation space to be used by a large number and diverse groups of people at any given time.

The rose garden is to be one of the major cultural markers of the Community Precinct. The spirit of the Rose Garden is to be a quiet place of reflection and beauty, situated off of the main pathway.

The Springvale Community Precinct is being developed as part of the 20 year program of renewal and revitalisation of this key Activity Centre.

You can read a recent article via https://www.brickworks.com.au/articles/projects/springvale-community-hub/

Recipient of the following awards:
2021 Victorian Premier’s Design Awards - High Commendation
2021 Think Brick Awards - Bruce MacKenzie Awards - High Commendation 2021 Good Design Awards 2021 - Gold Award for the Architectural Design - Commercial and Residential category
2021 AIA Victorian Awards - The William Wardell Award for Public Architecture
2021 AIA Victorian Awards - Urban Design
2016 Living Future Institute Australia - People’s Choice Award
2016 Living Future Institute Australia - Runner-Up Merit